ASK PLACEBO (3)

Part the third of your interrogation of PLACEBO covers the vital topics of make-up, romance, losing yer virginity and getting into fights.

Brian. How comfortable are you seeing loads of little versions of you? (Katy B, Surrey)

Brian: “I’m getting more and more comfortable with it. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. My comments about the Molkettes and Molko clones have been misconstrued in the press and particularly in NME. I was quoted as saying that they should just get a life, basically, but that was only half of what I said. It’s a strange thing: you get used to it after a while, but you still react with a similar amount of shock. To you, you’re the same asshole that you always were and you don’t understand why someone would want to look like you. But I’m not dissing it at all.”

Is cocaine good for you? (Kelly, Ireland)

Brian: “Very bad for you. I can’t go there any more. By the end of the evening you’d really end up hating yourself for being such an over-the-top individual, just like talking about yourself, and you end up really, really paranoid. It all ends up in a big mound of self-disgust. It ain’t good for the soul, man. Just have fucking spliff, man.”

Why do you have a second guitarist offstage? Who is he? (David McLymont, Scotland)

Brian: “He’s BILL LLOYD from the group TRAM, and he plays a little bass when Stefan and I are both playing guitar, and plays a little keyboards. It’s his choice he’s offstage. He doesn’t want to be seen. He’s our tech, who got promoted.”

Is it true that when you recorded ‘Bruise Pristine’, you did it naked? (Mathew Lary, USA)

Brian: “Absolutely.”

Have you ever had a near-death experience with a fan? (Katie Curry, Kent)

Stefan: “Nearly, when you dive into the crowd at gigs, and they’ve got you by the crotch and are strangling you.”

Brian: “Most fans have been really sweet to me. Real darlings. But when you spend an hour signing autographs outside a gig, and then suddenly it’s time to go, and they go from screaming ‘I love you’ to you becoming the biggest c– in the world. It’s quite blinkered. A hotel receptionist in Z|rich once pulled a gun on me, because I jumped behind reception and started to hug him because he was being such an arsehole. It was then I was told it would be a good idea to go to bed.”

Steve: “I haven’t. But I tried to hang myself when I was 16, from an apple tree, with a fucking garden hose. I was really pissed up. I was going down, and my mates sorted it out.”

Brian: “You never told us that.”

When did you start smoking? (Alice Roth, Barnstaple)Brian: “When I was 13. I stole my mother’s: Peter Stuyvesant luxury length, gold. And I went to the park in Dundee, where I grew up.”

Steve: “When I was 11.”

Stefan: “Properly, when I was 17, but my first cigarette was at a Monsters Of Rock Festival in Germany when I was 12. They gave out free packets of three fags. ‘Kids! Smoke up!'”

You’re one of the few men who actually look more attractive in make-up. Who told you it was a good idea to wear it? (Nicola Smith, Plumstead)

What’s you favourite make-up brand? (Nicola Moore, Stockport)

Brian: “No-one, really. I was about 11 when I started acting in school plays, and I instantly loved it. I figured it out by myself, really. I have an excellent make-up artist now. Maybelline does an excellent eyeliner and an excellent concealer. But as far as foundation goes, Ultra-Moist Max Factor Long-Lasting is pretty good if you’re a working musician.”

If you were to be neutered tomorrow, which person would you sleep with tonight? (Adam Westwood, Canterbury)

Steve: “Tara Banks.”

Brian: “A girl I met in Spain.”

Stefan: “A guy I met in Spain.”

Brian: “Spain, man. We just want to roll that country over and fuck it raw.”

Stefan (quietly): “With no lube.”

Steve: “No lube! Jesus!”

Brian: “I’m supposed to be the evil one. He’s the evil one!”

What’s the best or the worst rumour that you’ve heard about yourselves? (Jessica Thomas, Camberley, Surrey)

Steve: “That I was supposed to be going out with Tara Banks.”

Brian: “That I was a junkie. That was really hurtful, and also the one about me being a misogynist.”

Stefan: “That I had an enormous dick.”

What are your porn names? (George Brown, Essex) (Your porn name is the name of your first pet, and your mother’s maiden name – Ed)

Brian: “I’m from France: mine is Lancer Farrel.”

Steve: “Mine’s Butch Williams.”

Stefan: “Mine’s more a Germanic one: Ihssdey Haha.”

If you were born a girl, would you still want to look like one? (Hazel Norris, High Wycombe)

Brian: “I hope so. I was talking about this last night, because it would have been fun to be a real rock chick superwench, and use my sexual powers to destroy men. Hopefully, I’d be a maneater.”

When did you lose your virginity? (Claire Murphy, Dulwich)

Brian: “When I was 14.”

Steve: “When I was 13.”

Stefan: “At the illegal age of 19.”

How did you get into that fight in Middlesbrough? (Danny Kingston, Romford)

Brian: “That wasn’t us, it was a couple of our crew. These people heard a couple of cockney accents on them, and waited for them outside a pub and beat them with sticks.”

Steve: “It was a football thing. It was all because they supported a different football team. Sad fucks. Every football fan can go and fuck themselves.”

Click back tomorrow for the final installment wherein Brian tells us where he buys his dresses, what he thought of Velvet Goldmine and whether he prefers EMBRACE to a custard pie in the face.

So when did you lose YOUR viginity? What’s your favourite brand of make-up? Have your say. Post a message on Angst!